


Bang

by Kalaiscope



Category: The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Gen, its kinda trippy and about newt becoming a crank?, oh god what do I tag this, so like if mindfuck ain't ur thing, then you probably shouldn't read this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 17:09:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13722246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalaiscope/pseuds/Kalaiscope
Summary: He thought he knew what going crazy felt like; Suffocation, being stifled beneath mountains of despair and frustration and hopelessness, wanting to scream but having to smile instead. Putting on a mask for the world and pretending its the truth while you tear yourself apart in your head.This isn't like that.





	Bang

**Author's Note:**

> I started this... wow, two years ago? And just finished it, for some reason. My writing got worse during that time, somehow. Also I didn't proofread this like, at all, because it's 4am and I want it Gone. So. Please forgive any errors.

He thought he knew what going crazy felt like; Suffocation, being stifled beneath mountains of despair and frustration and hopelessness, wanting to scream but having to smile instead. Putting on a mask for the world and pretending its the truth while you tear yourself apart in your head. 

This isn't like that. 

At first it like having his emotions too close to the surface, rising like bile and making his head spin. Everything was suddenly ten times more frustrating and unfair that it had ever been, and the urge to laugh, to cry, to snap and lash out, was that much harder to resist. He kept it covered for the others, because, because... 

He can't remember why. No reason he can think of sounds important enough. 

Living with the Cranks, he starts to see himself reflected back in others. Fear, frustration, reckless impulsivity. He's being drowned in them, his rational mind swept away piece by piece. All his emotions are bubbling at the surface, and every one of them is anger. Going crazy is swinging wildly between wanting to give himself in to the senseless anger, and curling into himself on the ground with the mantra of _not this, not this, anything but this,_ running through his mind, as if the words alone can hold back the inevitable. It's losing control of his body, finding himself restlessly prowling the streets after dark with no real idea of how he got there. Cutting himself on broken glass and realizing he can barely feel the sting. Being sickened by the idea of food one minute, and then ravenous the next. Catching sight of himself in a plexiglass window and not being able to connect the fact that it's him for several seconds. Why is he so thin? How did he get this filthy? What's wrong with his hands, his face, his eyes? 

And then there are the hallucinations.

They begin as dreams, where he can't tell if he's asleep or awake until someone accidentally kicks him and he jerks upright in a different place than he was moments before. He never remembers falling asleep. In his mind, he walks the same purposeless circles, winding through the streets and memorizing the turns as if it were the maze. He hears the moan of Grievers around corners, sees creeping trails of vines, feels, not sees, someone following alongside him. In the waking world, it becomes the same. 

He sees Gladers in the corners of his eyes, Frypan, Winston, Jack, Minho, Thomas. Every time he thinks he sees the latter two, he flings himself around, furious, until he gets used to them not being real. Then he just lets the anger simmer. 

He sees Alby. No more than the rest, at first, but while the others remain momentary glimpses, Alby's presence lingers. He sits beside Newt at the bowling alley fires, walks with him through the streets, watches him when he lays on the ground and waits to see if sleep will take him. He doesn't talk. Newt wishes he would. 

It starts to wear on him. Just being _followed,_ and the way Alby's eyes seem to judge him, asking him questions he can't answer. _Why did you give up? Why did you leave? Why didn't you stop me?_

"Just say it!" He screams, throwing bottles that fly wide. "Say it! Say you blame me! Don't just keep looking at me like that, you coward! Say something!" 

Alby doesn't even flinch. He just keeps looking at him, impassive, imperturbable. It's worse than any of the other hallucinations yet. It makes him want to rip into his own flesh, tear out the part of him that's showing him these things. 

He tries. It doesn't work. 

Thomas doesn't understand. Losing your mind like this, it doesn't stop. There's no respite. Even sleep feels like a continuation of the nightmare. It won't get better. It won't, it won't, it won't, and there's no point. There never was. This futile existence, he sees it more clearly than he ever did. It won't get better. 

He makes Tommy leave. Alby watches, his gaze baleful and questioning. "Tell me you've got a better idea," Newt snarls at him, then closes his eyes and slams his head against a leaning piece of plywood. When he opens his eyes, Alby is gone. "Slinthead." He's not sorry to see him go. 

He comes back, of course, he never leaves for long. Newt tries to ignore him, but it's hard, with all his brain falling out his eyes. He walks through doors and ends up in his mother's kitchen, opens his eyes from sleep and sees the glade below him, falls, hits the ground, and wakes up again to Alby. He closes his eyes, and falls again. It doesn't stop. 

Thomas is back. He might not be real, but Newt is so tired. _If you've ever been my friend, kill me._ He doesn't believe in an afterlife, but it's still better than this. Like turning off the lights. 

Grievers sing all around him, coming ever closer. Thomas doesn't understand. He pulls the gun to his head. "Please, Tommy, please." 

He closes his eyes, and the grievers are silent. He opens them, and there's Alby. 

His lifts his hand, slowly, contemplatively, and points it at Newt, finger and thumb extended. 

He mouths, _BANG_. 

The lights go off.


End file.
